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Municipal votes · 2017–2018 Board

Needham Select Board

How the Needham Select Board voted, from the Select Board’s official minutes. 5 Select Board members elected townwide. The Board of Selectmen: Chair Marianne B. Cooley, Daniel P. Matthews (Vice Chair), John A. Bulian, Maurice P. Handel and Matthew D. Borrelli. MassVoter has loaded this board’s minutes from January 9, 2018 on. Covers 10 meetings, January 9 to April 7, 2018.

A monthly email on what it voted on, starting in November.

What does the Select Board do? It is the town’s executive board. It prepares the Town Meeting warrant (the list of articles voters decide), appoints members of many town boards, hires the town’s top staff, signs warrants to pay town bills, and grants licenses and permits.

Town Meeting, not the Select Board, votes the town budget and town bylaws.

Sources: Massachusetts Select Board Handbook (MMA) · Mass. Division of Local Services: the town budget
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Board years

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Members

Matthew D. BorrelliMember · Elected townwide · at 10 of 10 meetingsJohn A. BulianMember · Elected townwide · at 9 of 10 meetingsMaurice P. HandelMember · Elected townwide · at 10 of 10 meetings

"At X of Y meetings" counts the members the minutes list as present at the start of each meeting in this record. Members who step out are listed on each meeting page.

Meetings

About missing minutes

Loaded: Select Board minutes (called the Board of Selectmen until 2019) from January 9, 2018 through August 3, 2026, from the town’s online Archive Center, which holds Select Board minutes back to 2006 (MassVoter has loaded 2018 on). Joint meetings with other boards are included, but only the Select Board’s own votes. Not here: executive-session minutes; minutes of the board’s two-member subcommittees; minutes the town has not posted for 23 other meeting dates that have an agenda in the Archive Center: March 13, April 9 and April 24, 2018; March 26, 2019; April 29, 2020 (joint meeting with the Council of Economic Advisors), August 11, 2020 (joint meeting with the Affordable Housing Trust), November 3, 2020 (executive session) and November 19, 2020; March 15, April 27, October 21, October 25, November 16 (executive session), November 23, November 30 and December 14, 2021; October 24 and November 9, 2022; January 9, January 18 and October 30, 2023; November 25, 2024; and June 23, 2025; and every meeting after August 3, 2026 (the town usually posts minutes about two months after a meeting). The minutes are typed PDFs with a text layer, except 2 scanned files from 2018–2019 that MassVoter read with text recognition. Needham’s minutes give the mover and seconder of each motion and the result, almost always with a count (“Unanimously approved 5-0”, “Approved 4-1, with Mr. Levy against”), and sometimes a roll call by name. When the minutes say the vote was unanimous and the count matches the members present, we show every member present as voting yes; when they name the members who voted no or abstained and the count adds up, everyone else present is shown voting yes. Where a count does not match the members the minutes show as present, or a split count does not say who voted which way, we show the count only and add a note. Members who stepped aside (recused), had not yet arrived or had left are left out of that vote. We will ask the town to confirm any noted vote.

Saturday, April 7, 2018 · Regular meeting0 recorded votes, 0 with disagreementAll 5 members presentTuesday, March 27, 2018 · Regular meeting9 recorded votes, 0 with disagreementAll 5 members presentTuesday, March 20, 2018 · Regular meeting8 recorded votes, 0 with disagreementAll 5 members presentWednesday, March 14, 2018 · Special meeting3 recorded votes, 0 with disagreementAbsent: Marianne B. CooleyWednesday, February 28, 2018 · Special meeting1 recorded votes, 0 with disagreementAll 5 members present

Votes where members disagreed

Most board votes are unanimous. These are the ones where at least one member voted no or abstained, newest first.

None.

From the Needham Select Board’s official minutes, posted in the town’s Archive Center. We check every vote against the Select Board members present and quote the exact wording. MassVoter never grades or scores officials. Photos: Town of Needham, “Needham Select Board, April 2026–April 2027” member sheet.

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